Your first (and I hope only) accidental discharge

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CowboyTutt
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Your first (and I hope only) accidental discharge

Post by CowboyTutt »

Welp (SP), I have been corresponding with McPherson about my "squib load" in my 460 S&W "snubbie" that occurred last Spring when I was on my way to him and stopped in Utah to visit my best friend Tym along the way. I had some very old 45 Colt loads that were rather too mild a load of H110. When I went to fire it, it was about the second or third time, the cartridge did not go off. I held the revolver steady until no firing occurred, and thankfully for the sake of my hand and my firearm, I did not fire it again. I just followed well known procedures to wait, and check the chamber (whether single action or double action revolver) before you shot again. Well, this cartridge had barely ignited in the much longer 460 cylinder. The bullet lodged in the bore, and it was followed by a big "plug" of unburned H110 powder that was oozing from the forcing cone. If I had fired again and I almost did..... :o :shock: The photos of this "plug" of unburnt powder with the bullet lodged in the bore, is in 3 of McPherson's books now, in the hopes it spares someone else from catastrophe.

So I told McPherson that this was the scariest thing to ever happen to me with a firearm except for my first and only accidental discharge about 18 years ago. I was dry firing my Ruger Bisley in the living room of my duplex in Hollister, CA. Apparently, I had not removed all the ammo and had one left in it. It may have even been one of my original +P loads in 45 Colt. Thankfully, I had it pointed in a safe direction. It went through the living room wall, through my closet in my master bedroom, through my expensive kevlar weave motorcycle jacket, through the hallway wall, and lodged in the door frame of the other bedroom across the hall. I was even able to recover the bullet! Thank God no one else lived with me at the time, and it was pointed in a safe direction. I have never forgotten this lesson and thank God no one was harmed!

In the motorcycle world, we have a saying, 'there are those who have crashed, and those who will crash." There are some who say the same applies to the firearms enthusiast world regarding an accidental discharge. Hopefully this is not so.

I don't bring this up for the consistent members of this board as it is not new information, but for the many guests who may come by (and we do get many, many, many guest visitors who read what we write but don't join) and it seemed timely at the beginning of a new year, to revisit this subject to remind people of proper safety rules now that "newby" gun ownership is at an all time high given current events.

If you have had any accidental discharges in your experience, and without admitting any culpability, and if your comfortable doing so, this might be a good time to discuss it as a lesson to others who may visit here on Leverguns. I already told you of my own experience.

Regards my friends,

-Tutt
Last edited by CowboyTutt on Mon Jan 03, 2022 5:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Your first (and I hope only) accidental discharge

Post by yooper2 »

I think there is a difference between accidental and negligent discharges. One is a mechanical error and the other is human.
Had accidental discharges, like on a cheap Chinese copy of an Ithaca 37 that slam fired because there was metal chips in the firing pin channel.
My only negligent discharge was when I was doing trigger work on my New model flattop 45. I spent the morning taking it apart, stoning, reassembling, and dry firing at a knot on the apple tree outside my shop door. Got the trigger right where I wanted it and loaded the gun. Dropped it in my holster and walked out the door of the shop and then shot my perfectly innocent apple tree. No handling loaded guns after dry firing!


Eric

P.S.
I think it is very important to share stories like to help other people avoid what is at best an embarrassing situation and at worst a total tragedy. Good idea for a thread.
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Re: Your first (and I hope only) accidental discharge

Post by samsi »

I've never had one outside of shooting on a range, both formal & informal (knock wood). Both times, I let a shot go before I was ready (finger off the trigger until sights are on target, duh), and both times it was the first shot single action from a S&W immediately after shooting a Blackhawk with a stock trigger. Obviously some additional mindfulness AND recalibrating my trigger awareness were in order.

One I was witness to as a kid involved my dad and a friend of his at a rodeo. Dad's friend was a rodeo clown, and as they talked behind the chutes he (the clown) was preparing to walk out for one of those comedy bits. He dropped a 10 gauge blackpowder blank into the chamber of the old Winchester 1887 and slammed the lever shut...BOOM! When the smoke cleared dad's Levi's were on fire from the knees down, and after the fire was out there weren't a lot of blue jean left below the knees. His shins were kinda burnt and bloody too. IIRC they cleaned up his shins at the ambulance (not the only time dad spent at the rodeo ambulance) and he grabbed another pair of jeans (and likely a beer or two). Things were a bit different back then...
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Re: Your first (and I hope only) accidental discharge

Post by AJMD429 »

.
If you assemble the leaf-spring wrong in a 1911, it WILL fire whatever is in the chamber when you let go of the slide to go into battery.

Did that sitting on the stairs beside my son and blew a hole through a toolbox. No injuries because the toolbox shielded us from concrete and bullet fragments when the bullet struck the wall behind.

---

A 22 LR 'adapter' is essentially a 'gun' without a firing mechanism, but even OUTSIDE the AR-15 or Mini-14 it fits in, REMEMBER it has a chamber, a bolt, a firing pin, and a barrel.....so if there is a cartridge in it, and you drop it, it is very difficult and if I tried a hundred times I bet I couldn't repeat it, but it IS possible it will hit something just right to hit the firing-pin; we think it was a cabinet door handle, but will never really know...I never patched the hole in the kitchen wall cuz I want that to remain a visible lesson.

---

Back 50 years or so ago when I was a kid, caseless ammo was a thing. It IS possible to load one round in a single shot caseless 22LR, aim at a pop can, pull the trigger, hear a loud 'bang', see the can fall over (and later find a 22 caliber hole in it), and a second or two later, the gun make a fuzzy/hissy noise, and mortally wound your favorite cat. That is, if you turn around to the right to get another cartridge, muzzle down, and your cat was there cowering from the noise under the table. I normally had been turning to the left each time, but my mom had just come out to watch me shoot, and was standing ony left. When the cat screamed and somersaulted in pain with blood all over its face, I set the gun down muzzle away from us, got hold of the cat, and we saw missing skin and messed up eyeballs. My mom calmly (such an awesome woman) went to get the regular 22 rifle, and said "hand me the cat, and when you are ready to shoot him, I will put him in this cardboard box; please don't miss - he is suffering and even though I think he is blind, if he runs we may not catch him again". She set the cat in the box, deftly stepped behind me, and I euthanized my first pet cat. Then she calmly said "after you bury the cat, we need to make sure that new gun is safe before we box it up and take it back to the store". We presume a chunk of powder had a delayed ignition. It probably wouldn't have been as bad a wound to my mom, since it was mostly 'skin' stuff, but getting skin peeled off the foot or shin can be a slow-healing wound.

---

In all three cases, the firearm "shouldn't have gone off", but did. The thing that saved the day was that in each case the gun was never pointed at a human being. As you might guess, the first one of the three events was the one with the caseless ammo that resulted in the loss of a cat. I'm actually glad that happened toe as a kid, because it impressed me with the concept that even if your muzzle 'just quickly passes by something', if a bullet is discharged at that instant the consequences can be grave.
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Re: Your first (and I hope only) accidental discharge

Post by Lastmohecken »

I have read it in print and I tend to agree, the more you shoot, especially if you shoot a lot, the more likely that you will or have had an AD. Which is one reason that above all, you never let the muzzle point at anything you are not willing to shoot.

When I was a teenager, I practiced quick draw a lot, and I do mean a lot with a Ruger Single Six and a little later with a Smith K22. Well, one day, I went into the bedroom and loaded up my Single Six, strapped my gun gunbelt on, and was going to make a practice draw, but not actually fire the gun as I was walking thru the living room and promptly drew and shot a hole into the middle of the floor. The floor had a red brick Linoleum over a wood floor. I tore one of the bricks up pretty bad, but luckily the linoleum was fairly new, and we had a scrap piece laying around and some glue for it. To keep from getting into trouble, I very carefully cut the same size brick out of the scrap piece and even more carefully glued it down where I cut out the damaged brick. I also glued the rest of the linoleum down around the hole also. And believe me, I drew on every skill and talent I had to make it blend in.

A couple of days later, I saw my dad staring at the spot where I glued it in place, and I am sure it was because it was newer and shinier there. But he never figured it out, or at least never called me out on it. That linoleum was really good quality and laid there for 20 more years before my dad and my brother-in-law replaced it. My brother-in-law asked me about it later and I fessed up, but my dad never ever said a work about it. I wasn't there when they replaced it.

Another time when I was about the same age, maybe a little older, I took my Remington 700 bolt action apart and tried to adjust the trigger, as it had a terrible trigger from the factory. I played with it, until I got it just right, with a wonderful trigger, put it back together and walked out to the gravel road and set an oil can up in the middle of the road, stepped back and chambered a round, and fired a round into that oil can. It was perfect, what a wonderfully crisp trigger. I jacked another round in, and bang! The gun went off, as soon as the bolt closed. No harm done, just another hole in the dirt road. I ordered a Timney trigger for the gun, right after that and never looked back.
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Re: Your first (and I hope only) accidental discharge

Post by 2ndovc »

I think I may have told this story before, but I've only had one and hopefully it stays that way.

I was in my early 20s, first house and home alone. First wife was at work. I started goofing around with an S&W Modell 66 I'd recently bought. I'd gotten it out of my night stand, unloaded it and put the .38spl JSPs in my pocket. Sitting in the living room, looking it over and dryfiring it a few times at the TV, deciding it was time to put it away as the Ice Queen was due home soon. Reloaded the revolver and was heading back to the bedroom to put it away. Just as I'm getting up the "bad guy" in the movie appears on the screen, I draw and pull the trigger. Boom!
The TV screen explodes, the cat is throwing up on the floor and My Lab is running around the house to see if I got what I was shooting at.
Ran to the TV, terrified that the bullet had gone through it and out the living room wall into the neighbor's house. Fortunately, that big thick CRT glass screen being about 2" thick slowed the 158 gr. bullet enough that it broke through the back of the tube but not out of the plastic housing.
Cleaned up and a new TV a couple hours later, all was back to normal, less one TV bad guy.

Jason 8)
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Re: Your first (and I hope only) accidental discharge

Post by crs »

A group of 4 bird hunters were taking a break at my vehicle and we all were unloading our guns when a dove came loafing by and I shot it with my pump 12 ga.
Later that day , as we prepared our gear to put away in the truck, someone asked if all guns were unloaded. After a chorus of "yes" I said sure , pointed my gun to the sky pumped it with the trigger held back - the "boom" shocked me more than any one as I thought that I had ejected all the ammo. First and last time that happened. I later switched to shooting only doubles and can now see at a glance if the tubes are empty.
A benefit of this accidental discharge was that it gave me a good story to tell as I trained my kids how to be safe with their guns.
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Re: Your first (and I hope only) accidental discharge

Post by Scott Tschirhart »

I was 16 and working at Windy Biediger's gas station in LaCoste Texas. I had a military 1911 and a box of ball ammo. In those days, we shot hawks and stray cats wherever we found them (had a lot more quail in those days too). It was a very cold morning and I was on my way to work when I saw a stray cat on the side of the road. I plugged her and congratulated myself on my shooting.

I arrived at the gas station before it was open, which was my practice, and decided to unload the gun.

I pulled the slide back to eject the chambered round, then dropped the magazine......carefully pointed the gun at my floorboard and gently pulled the trigger blowing a hole in the floor of that old Oldsmobile. The noise inside the car was incredible! Fortunately I did not hit anything of value. But I learned the right way to unload a 1911 and I won't forget that lesson.

Now, I drop the magazine first, lock the slide back and visibly confirm that there is no round in the chamber.
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Re: Your first (and I hope only) accidental discharge

Post by .45colt »

When I was shooting all the time ,one of the guys at the club had a slide action trap gun for sale cheap. might be a good back up gun I thought. so I take it out for a round of practice. about the tenth shot having a shell on the lifter I close the slide for My turn to shoot . the gun goes off as I'm shouldering it and the shot pattern does a nice job on the back of the trap house. didn't think I touched the trigger. a few shots later it did it again. needless to say I told the owner and the deal was off.
About forty years ago a co-worker's brother was out hunting one cold Ohio day. His brother was a star athlete and when He was done hunting back at His car He was unloading His shot gun. somehow the 12ga fired and He shot himself right thru his ankle the charge going out the bottom of his boot. He ended up in Cleveland in one of the big hospitals. the story I got was two surgeons were working on Him and had a battle in the operating room over Him keeping His foot or not. He ended up with His foot but it was touch and go for about a year to see if it would ever completely heal up. He still has trouble but can walk. scared the stuff out of Me.
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Re: Your first (and I hope only) accidental discharge

Post by earlmck »

I have had two (sheesh! you'd think the first one would scare you enough wouldn't you?) of those things you describe as squib loads. These were both in my Ruger GP100, heavy load of H108 (ball powder like H110 but a scosh faster) behind 180 grain LBT bullet. Not any sort of mild load I can guarantee you. But I was not using magnum primers, instead using standard Winchester small pistol primers. Just like you describe -- bullet driven an inch or two into the barrel with a big clog of unburned powder behind. Thank goodness I wasn't blasting rapid fire double-action (which I used to do rather frequently back in the days when I could do so effectively).

That was 25 years ago or thereabouts; I have put several thousand rounds of that load downrange since then but now I use magnum primers (either CCI or Federal) and I have never had another such failure.

I have had one accidental (Savage 99 with trigger spring assembled incorrectly) and one negligent but you'll have to get some quality liquor in me to get any more details.
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Re: Your first (and I hope only) accidental discharge

Post by Tycer »

Shooting bad guys on the giant Zenith console with spitwads in the Crosman 760. Somehow got a bb in the tube. My friend’s dad beat my butt.
So far that’s been it.

The difference between a negligent and an accidental discharge is that when you do it it’s always negligent. When I do it it’s always accidental. 😉
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Re: Your first (and I hope only) accidental discharge

Post by Griff »

At a cowboy shoot several years ago, it was misting, and quite damp out. I drew my revolver from my xdraw holster and transferred the gun to my strong hand, I must not have had a great grip as I raised my hand and started to align the sights on the first target. I could feel the gun start to slip, as I cocked it with my off-thumb and gripped the pistol a little tighter. Blew a hole thru the bench and took the rest of the day off... Match DQ. Signed the hole and went about my business. I'm a lot more careful in the rain now!
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Re: Your first (and I hope only) accidental discharge

Post by 4t5 »

Bought a new 1911, and touched one off while on target, still aligning sights.
Last edited by 4t5 on Sun Jan 09, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Your first (and I hope only) accidental discharge

Post by Rimfire McNutjob »

I had one once. A WWII issue 1911 that was my fathers. It turned out, the thumb safety was broken. I was pointing it, loaded, at a baseboard with the safety on and pulled the trigger. Much to my surprise, it punched a nice hole in the baseboard. I was lucky to be practicing one of those golden rules of gun ownership that my father and grandfather drilled into me ... never point a gun at anything you don't intend to shoot. While I didn't intend to perforate the baseboard, it's far less of a loss than it might have been had I been more careless.

Now I have a general distrust of "safeties".
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Re: Your first (and I hope only) accidental discharge

Post by Mike Armstrong »

First time I went hunting alone with my then-new Winchester Model 37 single shot .410 in 1952 at the age of 8, I approached a stand of brush that was perfect quail and bunny habitat and got ready to shoot if anything scooted or buzzed out of it. Cocked the hammer in anticipation of shooting without shouldering the shotgun (I had been taught better....). Nothing jumped or flew, so I took a couple of steps toward the bushes stumbled, and of course, banged my finger against the trigger, blowing a 1" hole deep in the ground a few inches from my right foot!

In our area of Northern California the soil was what we called 'dobe--thick black volcanic ash that would grow anything. Unfortunately when it dried it was hard as rock and retained any tracks that were put on it when wet. Cow tracks in it were like shell holes until they melted in the autumn rains, and I put my foot into one of those, hence the stumble.

I knew what a close range shotgun blast, even from a .410, would do to someone ( a friend of my older brother had been killed dragging a hammer single shotgun under the bottom wire of a fence and I had seen the injury). This sorry episode didn't stop me from hunting or shooting, but so far I have NEVER cocked a hammer gun of any kind until it was pointed toward the target. And almost all of my guns have had hammers....
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Re: Your first (and I hope only) accidental discharge

Post by mickbr »

Ive had two firearms related errors.First one as a teenager with my first firearm a spas-12 due to lack of knowledge. First times emptying the mag of live shells by pumping the gun, didnt know there is any extra catch to open the action and void the last shell. At least had the good sense to point it in a safe direction and fire to release the action thinking it was empty. Boom! got a heck of a fright. Second was in the army 1993 using blanks during a field exercise. I thought someone was approaching the pit I was in. Trying to figure out if it was a person or waving palm frond before I challenged it. It was stormy weather at night. It was a palm frond but I inadvertently shot at it anyway :D I think I just changed position a little and squeezed when I shouldnt have.
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Re: Your first (and I hope only) accidental discharge

Post by Old Time Hunter »

Unfortunately, have had a couple. The scariest one was it was such a surprise, because my finger never touched the trigger.

It was my old '94 .375 BB. Too be honest, the action on it is looser than a goose. So loose that over the years I have accumulated enough components, except for the actual receiver to build another one. But that is no excuse,because if you know that you should be more attentive to its proclivities. Like once you break the finger lever down (which takes very little, a couple of ounces at most) the lever falls all the way open on gravity ejecting the cartridge almost on its own. Of course the cartridge does not fly up when it does this but does lift slightly. If you cycle the action normally, it does eject. The same in reverse, when you cycle back with the finger lever it is almost weightless, almost all the way up, until the cartridge is seated in the chamber and the locking bolt is fully engaged. That last eighth of an inch or so of seating the finger lever against the receiver takes a quick hard jerk.

It is kind of like when swings freely in the wind closing by itself, except for that jerk needed to clasp the latch. It also requires a jerk to get it to move the other way too....but once that initial movement starts, the lever falls open on its own.

The other issue with this gun is the trigger pull, it should not be this easy... the break is almost immediate, there is virtually no slack to be taken up and 2lbs later the hammer is falling.

Thankfully, I have been indoctrinated since Moby Dick was a minnow that you never point a gun further than you can pee, when cycling a round (this is starting to get dangerously close nowadays!), because in my over exuberance I slammed the finger lever against the receiver when chambering a round...and the thing fired. Put a hole in the ground three feet in front of me, my fingers were not even close to the trigger, had my first two in the ring. To this day, still do not know the why, but I know the how... has to do with the trigger sear, the loose action, and being inattentive.

The other accidental discharge was in a 1886 Kropatschek.... using original 1888 Portuguese ammunition. Just machined a homemade ejector for the bolt and decided to see if it would eject a cartridge. I was sitting at my bench with the gun on bags pointing down range, placed the cartridge in front of the bolt and slammed the bolt home... it did not happen immediately but simultaneously as the bolt seated and I turned the bolt, the gun fired. Two lessons learned, old ammo that refused to fire for years can come back alive, and measure twice before putting a homemade part in a gun. The ejector catch was a tad too long and a tad too sharp, it managed to cut into the shell just in front of the rim and the friction from me twisting the bolt must have generated enough heat to set off the black powder in the shell.
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Re: Your first (and I hope only) accidental discharge

Post by 44shooter »

I remember a decocking of a Colt 380 that sent a bullet safely to the ground in front of my target. Countless times with air guns seeing what it would do but nothing dangerous.

The scariest was after dry firing a 45 Auto N frame. I loaded the revolver to put it away as my defense gun. Somehow the muscle memory of what I had just been doing took over as I left my office towards the bedroom. I drew down very quickly on a wall socket and before I knew it the big cylinder was turning and BOOM! The Hydroshok hit the hardwood floor on its side and bounced into the baseboard. I found it on the kitchen floor in front of the sink. The cabinet door actually opened partially and had only a slight divot on the inside. Thing is I was over 40 for this one. All the others above were as a kid. I was startled then very embarrassed despite being by myself. I still dry fire by carefully reloading only immediately before returning the gun to its place.
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